Beatles For Sale (and other albums) on iTunes

The Beatles‘ catalog went up on iTunes last week and has quickly made its presence known on the iTunes charts.

As of Monday, Nov. 22, the Abbey Road album (1969) was charting third, behind Glee: The Music – The Christmas Album and Taylor Swift’s Speak Now. Let It Be was released in May 1970, long before Swift and most of the Glee cast were even born.

Altogether, iTunes is offering 17 Beatles albums. Monday evening all were in the top 100 album downloads. Not bad for a group whose last studio album was recorded more than 40 years ago.

The song download chart was still being dominated by the young popsters, but the Beatles were making some inroads there. Two versions of Let It Be and eight other songs were in the top 100 song downloads Monday evening.

Beatles songs on the chart were:

31. Here Comes the Sun

39. Let It Be

41. In My Life

52. Come Together

56. Blackbird

66. Hey Jude

82. Let It Be

89. While My Guitar Gently Weeps

91. Yesterday

93. With a Little Help From My Friends

Each song is $1.29, single albums are $12.99, and double albums are $19.99, which is somewhat higher than most iTunes offerings. The box set, which contains all 13 albums, Past Masters, and two films, sells for $149.

On Sunday, British bookies were giving 8-1 odds that a Beatles offering would top the charts by the coming weekend.